Institute of Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR)The IIAR is a not-for-profit organisation established to raise awareness of analyst relations and the value of industry analysts, promote best practice amongst analyst relations professionals, enhance communication between analyst firms and vendors, and offer opportunities for AR practitioners to network with their industry peers.

I’m responsible for leading and coordinating IDC’s World Wide Digital Transformation (DX) Strategies Practice and continuing to ensure IDC’s thought leadership in the digital economy. As you may already know, IDC estimates the economic value of DX to be $20T or more than 20% of global GDP.

What are your opinions of the IT Analysis Marketplace and where do you see it going?

The role and value we, as analysts, provide is tremendous and is ever more important to smart technology strategies. Today, technology is so core to businesses delivering on their brand promises, both products and services. Making a bad technology decision has such an impact on strategic and operational performance in a way that wasn’t the case 20 or 30 years ago. Conversely, making the right choices can enable break-through business performance and really create world-class customer differentiation capabilities. I’ve yet to meet successful business leaders who don’t want access to those insights. Continue Reading →

IIAR Analyst of the Year 2015 and IIARAnalyst Firm of the Year 2015

AND THE WINNERS ARE…

Keep reading below for the IIAR Analyst of Year 2015, IIAR Global Analyst Firm of Year 2015, IIAR Independent Analyst of the Year 2015 and the best new entrants.

The IIAR analyst of the year2015 was a close run thing this year round. Unlike previous years there was a lot more variety in the numbers and kinds of analysts chosen. Analyst relations professionals voted for over 150 different individual analysts, rating them along a wide range of criteria that included: their knowledge of the domain, does their research give actionable advice, is it novel and thought provoking etc; through to questions about their impact on technology adoption; and whether they were easy and flexible to work with from an analyst relations point of view.Continue Reading →

Last year, as part of the 2014 IIAR Analyst of The Year Survey, we invited analyst relations professionals to rate their favourite industry analyst individuals and the firms they worked for. More than 60 individual organisations responded to our survey. We were interested to see if we could do further analysis on the data that was collected.

When we set out to do the IIAR Analyst of the Year (with Helen Chantry), we always had envisioned doing a Magic Quadrant of analyst firms. This year the survey provided us with further information which we have been able to breakdown and analyse to provide a more detailed understanding of how analyst relations professionals perceive the relevance, impact and reachability of industry analyst firms. We are not claiming that this is an exhaustive study. Rather it simply opens a new (slightly cheeky – hence the notion of “Tragic Quadrant”) window onto the analyst landscape, where we attempt to rank industry analyst firms by impact, relevance and ease to do business with. Continue Reading →

October 15th, 2014 was a busy day for IDC. In addition to Marianne Kolding (VP, IDC European Services) presenting at the latest IIAR UK Forum IDC launched a new portfolio of decision making technologies – see the IDC Press Release below. Details of IDC’s DecisionScape, MarketScape and FutureScape are available for members <<here>>. A recording of the UK Forum held on the 15th October is available <<here>>. Continue Reading →

In his quiet, persistent manner, Simon coaxed Marianne into explaining how IDC works with CIOs and what research it’s now producing for the IT buyer.

And it turns out that there’s quite a lot. Marianne talked through the reach and exposure IDC has with end-users. She also explained several newer services that the company is launching directly to target the CIO and in-house IT decision makers.

It was a spirited, entertaining and insightful conversation. Led by our three panellists – Bill Reed, AGT; Dom Pannell, Unisys; and our own Yash Khanna, TCS – the audience weren’t shy about sharing their views on what they heard as well as their experiences.

We should provide wine and beer more often.

For IIAR members who couldn’t be there in-person, you can listen to recordings of both sessions in Huddle. For non-IIAR members, you can have access if you join up but otherwise you’ve missed out on two great conversations.

Our next meeting is at Christmas on the 9th December, in central London. We’ve got a great party planned, which Dell is kindly sponsoring. You should really come along for at least one drink.

Date/Time:15thOctober 2014, 5pm – 7pm BSTLocation:Holborn, Central London – details sent when registered.Register: <<HERE>> If you would like to join us please register soon.

Agenda:

1st Session – An exclusive interview session with Marianne Kolding (LinkedIn), the Vice President of European Services Research at IDC. This “interview session” will cover IDC’s reach and influence with the end-user community. Continue Reading →

The IIAR will be in attendance at the AR Luncheons at IDC Directions 2014 on the 11th of March in Santa Clara, CA and the 19th of March in Boston, MA. Please come by the IIAR table and say hello to John Gallagher (IIAR Member and US West Coast Coordinator) of Brunswick Group in Santa Clara and Alyssa Gilmore (IIAR Board Member and US Chapter Lead) of Bloomberg in Boston.

Not all IT research is about numbers, but the IT analyst business definitely is. It’s a business after all, and if you don’t make the numbers, you don’t have a business. But what’s interesting is how many different ways there are to make the numbers stack up.

It’s somewhat ironic that while IT analyst firms often rely on public – and private – disclosure of information from both vendors and end-user organisations to make their prognostications, they often don’t like to reveal too much about their own businesses. The big public firms, Gartner & Forrester, disclose good detail about their revenues to meet their statutory requirements, and perhaps a little more, while the private firms tend to be fairly vague. Continue Reading →

Gartner. Forrester. IDC. And lots of smaller fish, too. You can’t read a tech-industy news story, attend a conference or listen to a sales pitch without someone quoting an industry analyst. For tech companies, analysts are big news and big business, promising to help with transformation, monetization and a slew of other things ending in “-ation.”

But what do technology industry analysts really do? And how do you find the one that’s right for your company’s needs. Let me try to explain, from the inside. You see, from 1999 through 2001, I was an analyst at Jupiter Research, now part of Forrester Research.

There’s a wine analogy there: Gartner is like a Bordeaux (predictable blends) and Forrester is more like a Burgundy (more variable but sometimes great).

Gartner tends to sell to a mature IT audience, which is where most of the IT budget is. Its research output thus tends to be more conservative, after all most people don’t really want to experiment the at bleeding edge. As a result, it’s unlikely you’ll be surprised by a genial piece of research.

Forrester does this as well, but because (or thanks to) its marketing research, also cater for that role and its research style tends to be more adventurous (the Giga legacy probably) even if its coverage quality and quality is less constant.

And IDC sells to IT vendors mostly, a little to industry leaders (has to be a Côtes du Rhône, with elements of both depending on the individual analyst for opinion whilst the trackers are more constant –Shiraz is a bit like Marmite, it’s “love it or hate it”).

The point there is that your client base is your legacy, and unless you’re Steve Jobs or Henry Ford, most fail to break away from ‘building a faster horse’. In IT research aspects, it translates into “IT must align with business” (yawn). Analysts have been preaching this for the last 15 years, and it seems the issue hasn’t gone away. Some part of the IT will be run as a utility (a better word than cloud, and in the same bucket than facilities and real estate) whilst the innovative stuff will be done by the business. IT is the business, the rest is a commodity (this doesn’t mean that everyone knows how to provision a commodity efficiently).

Another interesting aspect is that because they sell to a mature audience, they will confronted to a bit of an issue when baby-boomers will (finally) retire in the coming 5 years and be replaced by Gen-X and Gen-Y who have no appetite for academic style research. [Note: there’s a discussion here with some fellow IIAR members on whether the Gartner client base is that, er, experienced. What do you think?]
Indeed Gartner is trying (again) to grow its SMB user base, but unless they radically change the way research is written, they will probably fail again. Constellation has probably a good card to play there by targeting smaller, innovative companies –even though up to 2/3 won’t make it into adult age.

On “design point”, Constellation is pitching itself right in the “future of work” trend.

For analysts, time will tell if it’s ensuring, but trying to retain them by force (check this letter from Forrester’s CEO George Colony on non-compete) isn’t going to build a star-stable. Indeed, whilst Gartner seems to be doing a good job at keeping its best analyst, but it’d be curious to see how the average experience of Forrester analysts has evolved over time. There seem to be more researchers who graduated as analysts than analysts who came from a previous career. That in itself isn’t a sole predictor for insight, though it helps, but one would think that there’s a cost aspect (it’s the Forrester vs. the Giga models).

For users, I’d venture out to say it’s again like Marmite. For establish companies, dealing with established brands having real offices offices is probably deemed ‘safer’. For Constellation’s target customers, meeting in a Stabucks probably isn’t a problem. James Governor (@monkchips, blog) seems to have found out that being unconventional actually helps with his specific audience: developpers.

On analyst access

In terms of business model,Ray is indeed accessible which is quite refreshing compared to other analysts who for instance reduce briefing slots to 30mn. Whether that can be scaled without administering Modafinil to the rest remains to be seen.

For end users, it would be a net-gain if the processes to ensure a constant user experience as Constellation grows in size work effectively.

On research approach

Legacy firms underplay the community aspect indeed but let’s not forget that Gartner is quite a large community in itself.

From an end-user aspect, one could expect more innovative research.

On sales

IMHO it’s where I’ll be watching Constellation as converting from a consulting model to a RAS one isn’t that straightforward. So far they seem to be on the right track though.

Bottom line:

Gaining enough scale to gain a sufficient end-user base is challenging for mid-sized firms but Constellation seem to be making all the right noises.

The UK’s recent IIAR Forum saw both IDC and Ovum present their predictions for the IT industry in 2012.

Cloud came through as the area of focus for 2012 and will be the dominant platform. While SaaS spend will be more discretionary, PaaS will be the fastest growing platform accounting for 80% of the volume of new applications distributed by the cloud, according to IDC. Ovum also put cloud as one of their key 2012 Super Themes saying there will be an evolution in the cloud with a focus on how to build the private cloud. Their feeling was, as with IDC, was that PaaS would be the fastest growing cloud segment and that enterprise adoption of the public cloud would significantly increase over the year.

Jane Doorly, VP of IDC discussed the industry’s shift to the “third platform” built on mobile, cloud, social, and Big Data technologies which will accelerate in 2012 forcing the industry’s leaders to make bold investments and fateful decisions. Continue Reading →

What better way to end the year with than to hear about analyst predictions for 2012 and then meet with your analyst buddies and AR colleagues at an informal networking event over a celebratory glass. It’s an action-packed afternoon with two analyst presentations plus a formal introduction to the new IIAR Board.

The event will be held on Thursday 8th December in central London with the networking celebrations taking place immediately after. It’s a great opportunity to wish your analyst friends and AR colleagues a Happy Christmas while meeting some new faces too.

This event is very kindly being sponsored by Metia – a global digital marketing agency with vertical experts in PR, AR, partner marketing and customer advocacy.

Every AR person knows that many of the most influential analysts in the information technology industry work at Gartner. But analysts are not the most influential influencers out there, peers are – IT buyers and practitioners most trust the insights of other IT buyers and practitioners who have been through similar buying and implementation processes. The historical blockades to peer-to-peer exchange, however, have been (a) finding qualified peers and (b) providing a safe harbor for peers that prefer to remain anonymous in order
to participate. Continue Reading →

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Disclaimer

The opinions expressed on this blog post are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their employers or other members of the IIAR.

While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy and compliance with copyright laws, we can’t be held liable for any unintentional misrepresentation on this post but are happy to correct any wrongs quickly.